December 7, 2011

Tintin is a young and capable journalist who spends his days going on adventures to find worthwhile stories to write about in newspapers.

The Plot

Tintin gets caught up in a mystery to find some hidden treasure with clues hidden inside of three model ships made in the likeness of an old sailing vessel named The Unicorn.

The Production

The film is beautifully animated with some of the best CGI based on motion capture I have yet seen. With it being directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson the expectations were set high. With the screenplay being written by Doctor Who head writer and all round genius Steven Moffat, along with rewrites by Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish, those expectations sky rocketed even further. The film had an estimated budget of $135,000,000 and to date has taken in £207,000,000 and that’s before it’s even been released in North America. It is set to be the film in a trilogy (with the last scene of the movie setting up the plot for the second film). I found the 3D aspect only slightly added to the experience and actually found it to emphasise the jitter between transitioning from frame to frame. That could just be me but I’m not sure. When The Hobbit is released in 3D at 48 frames per second hopefully that will remove the jitter for me, and if so, I hope more movie’s will adopt the higher frame rate instead of the current 24 frames per second.

The Cinema

We went to watch this in one of the 3D screens at Vue in Westfield, Stratford. There was a man who stood for most of the movie in the row in front of us, slowly edging up the row and into the centre almost directly in front of us, tiny side step by tiny side step. Eventually when he started taking up a good deal of my screen view I politely asked him to move back the way he came or to sit down. I think he was mentally unwell and his carer apologised. I decided against calling a house steward because I didn’t want to get this poor guy in trouble especially as I suppose his behaviour isn’t something he is very aware of. In the end we just moved seats.

The Verdict

I though the film was OK but not something I’d go out of my way to watch again. There were many moments where I was bored and my mind wondered a bit but there were also some great scenes like the action chase scenes or the comedy bits with Captain Haddock. Given the great minds behind this project I’ll probably go watch the second movie if it’s made but I can’t say it’s something I’ll be waiting with bated breath for.